Foreign assistance draws few complaints in Aceh

ALAN SIPRESSThe Washington Post

Published Friday, January 28, 2005

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Two young Acehnese girls carry a family's ration of water in a refugee camp in Banda Aceh, Indonesia Thursday Jan. 27, 2005. Indonesia wants to move all 400,000 refugees out of squalid camps in Aceh province by the end of February, the head of the country's relief operations said Thursday.

AP Photo LHOKNGA, Indonesia -- Ali, a scruffy Acehnese truck driver turned tsunami refugee, said he wasn't sure who provided him with a sack of rice, bottled water, a blanket and a few other meager provisions, just that they were foreigners.

Brushing aside flies, he knelt in a corner of his tent and pointed to the sky when asked where the supplies had come from. One item was a silver packet labeled "Shortbread" in English. Another larger brown package was stamped "Red Beans and Rice." They appeared to be U.S. military food rations.

"The foreigners are the only ones who gave us anything. We haven't gotten anything from the Indonesian government," said Ali, 43, a sad-eyed man with curly hair and a scraggly beard. "If the foreign soldiers leave Aceh, the Acehnese people will starve to death."

A heated debate over how long U.S. and other foreign troops should be allowed to remain in Indonesia has been dominated by political and military leaders based in Jakarta, the capital.

The country's welfare minister, for example, told reporters Sunday that it was "only logical" that foreign forces begin pulling out. "The emergency phase is almost behind us, so the military will no longer give their contribution," said Alwi Shihab, referring to U.S., Singaporean and other foreign troops.

But in more than two dozen interviews in Aceh, Indonesia's westernmost province, residents unanimously said that foreign forces should remain for at least several years. Acehnese, from homeless rice farmers to professors and local officials, said the troops should help with reconstruction and serve as a check on Indonesian security forces, widely feared in the province because of their heavy-handed campaign against separatist rebels, known as the Free Aceh Movement. The rebels have been fighting for autonomy for decades.

The desire of many Acehnese that the foreign forces stay reflects frustration with domestic relief efforts but also an alienation from Indonesia born of 29 years of civil war.

The tsunami that crashed into 11 Indian Ocean countries on Dec. 26, killing an estimated 150,000 people, triggered an unprecedented international relief campaign. At least 12 countries, including the United States, provided military support operations, and about 100 U.N. agencies and private humanitarian groups rushed to the stricken area. But many Indonesian officials, party activists and senior military officers have demanded that U.S. and other foreign troops depart within weeks.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla, airing the nationalist sentiments of many Indonesians, called on the foreigners to leave by March 26. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, however, has softened the deadline, saying that some foreign military expertise and equipment might be needed beyond that date.

Adm. Thomas Fargo, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, said recently that military forces involved in providing relief to countries struck by the tsunami were already beginning to withdraw and could be gone entirely by late March. The U.S. military has deployed about 8,000 troops in and around Indonesia, mostly on ships off the coast.

Acehnese have been cautious in public about the foreign presence. The government's battle with the Free Aceh Movement has left the local population cowed, fearing interrogation, detention or even summary execution by one side or the other for voicing offending views.

As Ali and his wife shared their impatience over Indonesian relief efforts, they kept watch through the opening of the tent, lowering their voices whenever Indonesian army trucks, crowded with soldiers in green camouflage uniforms cradling automatic rifles, rumbled past. U.S. Navy Sea Hawk helicopters roared overhead every few minutes, heading down the west coast to deliver aid.

"If it's possible, the foreign troops should stay here 50 years," Ali continued, almost pleading. He and other refugees said they feared being identified by the army and requested that they not be photographed or further identified. "If the international troops don't stay here for a long time, there will be corruption, and none of the assistance will get into our hands."